You’ll want something to do to keep guests occupied until the 2008 New Year begins. Here are some of our favorite party games and activities, plus tons of New Year’s Trivia! Tell us about your New Year’s traditions!
DRESS UP GAME - To play this game, you will need to ask your guests ahead of time to come to your party dressed up representing a specific year or decade in history. The contest is to see who (if anyone) can figure out everyone’s year!
RESOLUTION GAME - When your guests arrive, have them write down their New Year’s Resolution. Collect all of the answers, read them out load, and ask the guests to guess whose resolutions are whose! Provide a piece of paper for each guest to write down their guesses and then tell the answers. Whoever gets the most correct wins a prize!
EVENT CHALLENGE GAME - Choose 12 events that have happened over the year. Pick a few obvious ones (like a news worthy event), and have the other events be something a little more subtle. For example, Mother-In-Law Day, National Secretary’s Week, National Ice Cream Week, etc. Ask the guests to give the corresponding dates (or maybe month depending on how difficult you make the questions!). Whoever gets the most right gets a prize!
CANDY BAR CRAZE - For a little physical challenge, try this relay race: Provide each guest with a candy bar and divide the group into two lines. The object is for each guest to run down to a designated spot and unwrap the candy bar using only the chopsticks - no hands or teeth allowed! Once they have it unwrapped, they need to eat it, and return back to their group and tag the next person in line. The team that wins is the team that gets all of it’s players done first!
I HAVE NEVER - Each person receives several counters (our Confetti works great for this!) Then take turns around the circle having each person tells of something they have never done (example: I have never broken a bone or I have never traveled out of the country). Anyone who has done this must give the speaker one of their snowflakes. After going around the circle several times, the person with the most tokens wins.
BUBBLE GUM GAME - Good For Families This game can be played as a relay race or be based on individual times. Split your guests into teams of 3-5 people. Get some of our Plastic Coated Paper Plates, bubble gum, and whipped cream (in a can). Put a piece of bubble gum on the plate and swirl the whipped cream over it until the bubble gum is completely covered. Then have your guests dig through the whipped cream and find the bubble gum. Here’s the catch, players must keep their hands behind their backs and dig through the whipped cream with their faces! Once they find it, they must chew it and blow a fairly good sized bubble. Continue until every one has had a turn. The person who blows the bubble first is the winner. You can also do several rounds until you have one winner. *Depending on what your guests wear, you may want to have a towel or garbage bag to use as a bib.
WHAT’S YOUR NAME SWEETIE - Materials:
• About 6 different candies that have given names like M&M’s, Crunch, Wrigley’s , etc.
• 1 Die (or 2 dice if the crowd is very large)
Everyone is seated on the floor in a circle. Packaged candy bars or candy are placed in the middle of the circle. Everyone starts by saying their own names. The leader then makes sure that everyone knows what candy is in the middle. Someone begins by rolling the dice. If they roll a 6, they can take one of the candies in the middle. The die continues to go quickly around the circle while people keep picking up candy. When all of the candies are taken, people then can get other people’s candy. In order to get their candy, they must state the person’s first name and the name of the candy they hold. The person who rolls a 6 and matches the name of the candy and the person takes the other’s candy. If they forget either name, they miss their turn and the dice goes to the next person and they continue to roll. (One person can get more than one candy and people can hide the candy behind their back). This is a great way of getting to know people’s name and getting your favorite candies!
DAIQUIRI RACE - Blindfold the men and line them up on one side of the room. Place the women on the opposite side of the room with a frozen daiquiri. The object of the game is for the women to take a spoonful of the frozen drink, carry the spoon by the handle in their teeth, and feed the drink to their partner. This game has to be done without using any hands, and the first couple to finish their drink wins! (This game is also a lot of fun with ice cream instead of daiquiris).
HAND TO HAND - Guests need to get into pairs and form two circles, one inside of the other. One person needs to be in charge of starting and stopping the music, and another person gets to be the leader. When the music begins, the two circles are to begin moving in opposite directions. The leader remains in the center of the circles barking out commands such as “Hand to foot,” “Nose to back of head,” “Elbow to hip,” “Cheek to cheek,” etc., and every time the music is stopped the people facing each other must obey the commands. When the music stops, the leader must find someone to pair up with, and then the person who is left out becomes the leader.
TO SPEAK, OR NOT TO SPEAK? – Give each player a bag or goodie box with 10 small treasures in it (candy, chocolates, little favors). Have bags labeled with players’ names, so they don’t get mixed up. Let players know at the start of the game exactly when the game will be ending—this game can be played throughout an entire party if you so choose. The object of the game is to catch fellow players saying one of the following words or phrases:
MILLENNIUM, NEW YEAR, TWELVE, CENTURY, TIMES SQUARE
To help players, post the words prominently on a board where they can be seen often. If someone is caught saying one of the words on the list, that person has to give up a treasure from their stash. The player with the biggest haul of goodies at the end of the game is the winner!
A Century of Trivia
1. In what year did the Dow Jones average close above 100 for the first time?
2. How old was Bobby Fischer when he won the U.S. Chess Championship, in 1958, for the first time?
3. In what year did the Concorde make its inaugural flight?
4. In what year did Alexander Graham Bell make the first transcontinental call, from New York to San Francisco, to his associate Watson?
5. What vehicle was introduced in 1908, and what did Henry Ford introduce in 1925?
6. Who played in the first Super Bowl in 1967?
7. What was Elvis Presley’s first Billboard Top 10 hit? (1956)
8. What year was the USSR’s Mir Space Station launched?
9. What year marked the end of the “Cold War”, and which two leaders presided over the proclamation?
10. In what year did Robert Peary and Matthew Henson drive a dog sled 400 miles to become the first men to stand at the North Pole?
11. What was the name of the biplane the Wright brothers flew in 1903 (it was airborne for 59 seconds, and traveled a distance of 852 feet.)
12. In 1901, the Panama Canal Treaty was signed, and construction commenced on the Canal. By how many miles did the canal reduce the travel distance (over water), between New York and San Francisco?
13. In what year was the 19th amendment, granting women the right to vote, passed by Congress and ratified by the states?
14. Who led the overthrow of the Czarist regime in Russia in 1917?
15. How many people lost their lives when the Titantic hit an iceberg and sunk on its maiden voyage in 1912?
16. How many record-breaking points did Wilt Chamberlain score in a basketball game in 1962?
17. In what year did RCA manufacture the first color TV set?
18. Who was the first man to walk in space?
19. When was the Empire State Building completed and dedicated?
20. Who completed the first solo transatlantic non-stop flight in his mono-plane, “The Spirit of St. Louis?
21. Who discovered penicillin?
22. What year marked the start of the worldwide Great Depression?
23. In 1947, who became the first African American to play Major League Baseball?
24. How many home runs did New York Yankee Babe Ruth hit in his 1927 season, when he set a Major League baseball record that would stand for 34 years?
25. On September 1, 1939, what country did Hitler’s army invade, marking the beginning of WWII?
26. How many banks failed during the 1930’s great economic depression?
27. Who was the first American to break the record for running a 4-minute mile?
28. Who won the “Triple Crown” in 1973?
29. When was Margaret Mitchell’s book, “Gone With the Wind” published?
30. Where did the U.S drop atom bombs in August and September of 1945?
31. In what decade did the following items become the “rage” – hula-hoops, drive-in movie theatres, and frozen TV dinners on 3-section aluminum trays?
32. What #1 hit did Bill Haley & The Comets have in 1955, as Rock ‘n’ Roll hit the big time?
33. Which U.S. President broke the Democratic Party’s 20-year hold on the Presidency in 1952?
34. When was John F. Kennedy assassinated in Dallas?
35. What Apollo mission was Neil Armstrong on when he first walked on the moon on July 20, 1969?
36. In what year was the National Basketball Association (NBA) formed?
37. In what year did Martin Luther Luther King, Jr. deliver his “I Have a Dream” speech in Washington D.C.?
38. How many people attended the Woodstock Music Festival in August 1969?
39. Who was the first woman to become a U.S. Supreme Court Justice?
40. Who was the first U.S. President in American History to resign from office?
41. In what year was the Berlin wall torn down?
42. The Reagan era generated what new social phenomenon?
43. What did General Chuck Yeager do in 1947?
44. What was introduced in Mansfield, Ohio in 1955?
45. By the end of the 1998 baseball season, Mark McGwire had a record breaking 70 home runs. Whose record did he break?
46. How old was John Glenn, Jr. in 1998 when he became the oldest astronaut in space?
47. Which country suffered the greatest military losses in World War II?
48. Name 5 of the top 10 of the “100 greatest movies of all time”, as decided by the American Film Institute.
49. What is the top selling U.S. Music Album of all time?
50. Which Music Artist spent the most weeks with a hit on the U.S. “Singles Chart”?
Sources: Time™ Magazine, The Popular Music Database, American Film Institute
ANSWER KEY:
1. 1906
2. 14
3. 1976
4. 1915
5. 1908-Model T, 1925-40 hour workweek
6. Chiefs and the Packers (The Packers won)
7. Heartbreak Hotel
8. 1986
9. 1992 – Bush, Yeltsin
10. 1909
11. The Flyer
12. 8,000 miles
13. 1920
14. V.I. Lenin
15. 1,500
16. 100
17. 1954
18. Aleksei Leonov – USSR, 1965
19. 1931
20. Charles Lindberg
21. Alexander Fleming
22. October 29, 1929
23. Jackie Robinson, Dodgers
24. 60
25. Poland
26. 1,300
27. Don Bowden
28. Secretariat
29. 1936
30. Hiroshima, Nagasaki
31. 50’s
32. Rock Around The Clock
33. Dwight D. Eisenhower
34. November 22, 1963
35. Apollo 11
36. 1949
37. 1963
38. 400,000
39. Sandra Day O’Connor – 1981
40. Nixon
41. 1989
42. Yuppies
43. Break the Sound Barrier
44. Microwave Oven
45. Roger Maris
46. 77
47. USSR – 13,600,000
48. 1. Citizen Kane
2. Casablanca
3. The Godfather
4. Gone With The Wind
5. Lawrence of Arabia
6.Wizard of Oz
7. The Graduate
8. On the Waterfront
9. Schindler’s List
10. Singin’ in the Rain
49. Thriller-M. Jackson-25mill.
50. Elvis-1,586 weeks
Accent your decorations with streamin’ swirls hanging from the ceiling, tissue champagne bottles or a personalized champagne bottle standee. The top hats and bow ties border is perfect for accenting walls, tables and other surfaces.
